Three Foxconn workers arrested for leaking iPad 2 design

Three Foxconn workers were arrested and charged for leaking details about the …

Details of the iPad 2's design leaked out as early as December 2010, nearly three months before Apple officially unveiled the updated device in early March. Three employees of Taiwan-based Foxconn, Apple's manufacturing partner, have been arrested and formally charged for leaking details of the design to accessory companies.

One of the earliest leaks of case designs purported to fit the second-generation iPad popped up in early December. More rumors based on alleged iPad 2 case designs came later in the month, noting details of the device's size and design that turned out to be fairly accurate. Foxconn suspected a leak from the inside, and three workers at its Shenzhen, China plant where iPads are assembled were arrested on December 26, 2010—just days after the newest batch of rumors surfaced.

According to DigiTimes, a local Shenzhen news source reported that the three employees were formally charged by police with violating Foxconn trade secrets in late March. Foxconn may have been prompted to act on the suspected leak either directly by Apple or in an effort to maintain its relationship with the company, which has a legendary reputation for the effort it puts into keeping products secret until they are official released.

This isn't the first time Foxconn has acted to maintain the secrecy of Apple products. "Extreme pressure" to keep product details under wraps is believed to be part of the reason behind the July 2009 suicide of Foxconn worker Sun Danyong. Twenty-five-year-old Sun was responsible for shipping 16 iPhone 4 prototypes from the factory to Apple. After he discovered one of the prototypes went missing, he reported the problem to his superior at Foxconn only to find himself being accused of stealing the prototype.

Foxconn security staff raided Sun's apartment and reportedly questioned him under duress, both verbal and physical. "Even at a police station, the law says force must never be used, much less in a corporate office," Sun wrote after the incident. "I was just a suspect, my dear head of security, so what reason and right do you have to confine me and use force?"

Less than two days after the incident, Sun lept out of the window of his factory dormitory to his death. "Thinking that I won’t be bullied tomorrow, won’t have to be the scapegoat, I feel much better," Sun wrote to a friend shortly before committing suicide.

Several worker suicides followed in the months after Sun's death, prompting Apple COO Tim Cook to visit Foxconn with a team of executives and suicide prevention experts. "The team commended Foxconn for taking quick action on several fronts simultaneously, including hiring a large number of psychological counselors, establishing a 24-hour care center, and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides," according to Apple's 2011 Supplier Responsibility Report.

Poor worker conditions in China are well documented, despite the efforts of foreign companies to ensure that minimum levels of safety, wages, and law compliance are observed in their suppliers' factories. Given this situation, it is little surprise that Foxconn workers might leak details of Apple devices to Chinese accessory manufacturers, who in all likelihood offered them money in exchange for the advance specifications.

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I don't think you can attribute this just to Apple secrecy or the Foxconn/Apple relationship. I'm sure there are other clients who like to keep their trade secrets secret. Foxconn operates in a commodity market on thin margins. They need the trust of their clients -- all of their clients -- or they could easily find themselves in trouble.

Why do people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn? If you look at the actual statistics, they're lower than the general Chinese population. Yes, there have been some suicides, but it's silly to pretend that they've had anything to do with the products they're making or some kind of intense pressure they're under.

BTW, the thing about raiding his apartment is that most of these people live in apartments built for and provided by the company, on company grounds. It is less like going to your house and rummaging through your stuff and more like going through your jail cell and rummaging through your stuff. At best you could call it a hostel.

I don't have a problem with people getting arrested for breaking the law, but this is China... how do they punish criminals? I have no idea, but if they sentence people to hard labor or really long prison terms or even death, just for leaking info about a gadget, that would be unfortunate.

Curious: can you be arrested for revealing trade secrets in the U.S. as well?

Can you be arrested for leaking info about future products in a country where companies have become official first class citizens (right up there with the rich)? That's an affirmative. They can also sue you into financial non-existence to "dissuade others from attempting such malicious actions", or so they would say. God bless the USA!

Yes, but it remains to be tested if unreleased information that is ultimately intended for public consumption (that is to not be secret), such as the design of a future product counts as a trade secret. In some ways it fits, being kept secret for a market-advantage, but the nature of secrecy is temporal, which is unlike usual trade secrets, additional the actual value is very hard to put a value on. In many cases the leaks just make Jobs look foolish, and what is the price on that?

So the answer depends on, whatever the courts decides when it is tested.

You're 'fanboi' friends will probably point out that this wasn't Apple's doing, and in fact there is no evidence that Apple had any knowledge of the details of the investigation, much less that they imitated it; hence your statement is pure hyperbole.

Dunno about anyone else, but for me it has nothing to do with suicide and statistics. It's the dime store conspiracy and intrigue of nobly downtrodden employees conveniently dying when they do things that could cost the darkly monolithic Foxconn corporation a crapload of money.

You're 'fanboi' friends will probably point out that this wasn't Apple's doing, and in fact there is no evidence that Apple had any knowledge of the details of the investigation, much less that they imitated it; hence your statement is pure hyperbole.

I don't know about hyperbole, but it is a particularly cruel and inhumane form of trolling to laugh about a suicide. Some people take their petty platform wars too far.

This is ridiculous. If you are in any way involved in technology as a profession on any level in ANY country, you have signed a NDA. Nothing new here, so please move on without either denigrating Chinese laborers or the companies who employ them.

This only means what you think it means if Foxconn's work force is demographically representative of the country (it's not), or if the country's suicides are confined to the demographics represented within the work force (which, from what I understand, is also not the case).

You're 'fanboi' friends will probably point out that this wasn't Apple's doing, and in fact there is no evidence that Apple had any knowledge of the details of the investigation, much less that they imitated it; hence your statement is pure hyperbole.

You can say that having read this article, but most people I know wouldnt. I didnt say that me using that argument is valid, just to hear the fanboy still find a way to say Apple is awesome regardless. I could easily make this a valid argument from a different perspective, though.

Gary Patterson wrote:

I don't know about hyperbole, but it is a particularly cruel and inhumane form of trolling to laugh about a suicide. Some people take their petty platform wars too far.

Perhaps. Me and my friends probably hate on each other's opinions a bit too much, but neither of us are going to be the first to stop...

"...and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides"

Maybe, just maybe, Apple and others could afford to make less obscene profit and treat their employees better.

Nets? Best to catch your slaves, oh, I mean employees, so that trained laborer can get back to work. After all, that guy leaping to his death makes a few US Dollars a day. It probably cost a whole Benjamin in time to get him up to speed in the factory line.

"...and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides"

Maybe, just maybe, Apple and others could afford to make less obscene profit and treat their employees better.

Nets? Best to catch your slaves, oh, I mean employees, so that trained laborer can get back to work. After all, that guy leaping to his death makes a few US Dollars a day. It probably cost a whole Benjamin in time to get him up to speed in the factory line.

The whole situation is messed up.

While I wouldn't blame Apple for the suicide, I do question their attitude in commending any company that places 'suicide nets' around their building.